Grupin Receives IDR 42 Billion of Funding Led by Surge

Startup developer of social commerce platform “Grupin” announced that it has received initial funding of $3 million or the equivalent of 42 billion Rupiah. This round was led by Surge from Sequoia Capital India. Also involved are Skystar Capital and East Ventures.

Grupin is part of the 6th Surge Cohort. Several companies in this cohort come from the AgTech, EdTech, FinTech, direct-to-consumer and e-commerce sectors. In the EdTech sector, these companies are leading the way in digital learning and mentoring.

Grupin is an Indonesia-based social commerce platform that offers consumers a community-based interactive shopping experience, accompanied by the benefit of deep discounts on mass consumer products.

Grupin was founded in January 2021 by Kevin Sandjaja, who previously served as CEO of Pegipegi and Ricky Christie, who has 8 years of experience building large-scale systems.

Like existing social commerce applications, Grupin offers a community-based shopping experience to consumers collectively, with the aim of getting better price offers.

The goods provided are about daily needs such as basic necessities, kitchen utensils, baby products, to electronics. For now, this service is only available for the Greater Jakarta and Bandung areas.

With the proliferation of e-commerce, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, consumers want a shopping experience that is different, but also has aspects that they find offline, namely experiences that not only provide competitively priced products, but also have social interaction.

“At Grupin, we offer this shopping experience, which is very attractive to customers in Indonesia, because it is related to the values ​​of gotong royong, namely working together to achieve a common goal,” said Grupin Co-Founder Kevin Sandjaja.

He continued, “Not only do we provide customers with greater value for their money, but also enable producers, MSMEs, as well as farmers to reach new consumers. With this funding, we plan to strengthen our team and expand our network of cooperation with producers. both inside and outside Indonesia.”

How Grupin Works

To use this service, after downloading the application and registering in it, the user can select the required items.

Then, users are asked to invite friends to join the group by sharing a special link. Once the group meets the minimum number of people, the product can be purchased and will be sent to each member’s home address.

Each item offer has different conditions for the number of group members. Grupin also provides offering features that are always tailored based on location, browsing behavior, purchasing preferences and purchasing power.

Additionally, customers can share the best deals and products with their friends and family within the app itself, providing a unique shopping experience that has a different social feel to what some other e-commerce platforms offer.

Collective Buying Business Model

Grupin is not the first to play an e-commerce business model with the concept of collective buying. Previously, other startups also had similar features, call it Kitabeli.

Recently, KitaBeli has completed series A funding worth more than $10 million supported by Go-Ventures, East Ventures, and a number of other investors.

This business model is believed to be suitable for the Indonesian market, especially to target users in tier-2 and 3 areas. This collective shopping model can also attract consumers who are not familiar with shopping online.

In addition, the strong community network among neighbors in these areas is considered suitable for collective purchases like this – let alone being able to get a more affordable price.

It’s one of several business models that can be applied to social commerce. Another model is a partnership, allowing micro entrepreneurs [individuals] to have a selling business without having to have large capital to stock goods. Some startups that play in this realm are Evermos and RateS.